Poured into straight pint glass. Poured a clean, clear brown color, with just a bit of a reddish tint, and had 1/2 inch of light tan head that good retention and low-to-moderate lacing.

The aroma was all sweet malts, no real hop presence, sadly no bacon scent either. There was just a hint of a slight sour/funk smell though. On the tongue, The story was pretty similar, sweet malts, barely there hops, a complete lack of bacon:( , and that sour was just barely there. Maybe if I hadn't smelled, I wouldn't have even tasted it.

The body was good, though pretty typical for the style, medium-full, smooth, and even. Drinkability was good, the beer went quickly and easy enough. Overall, a pretty nice take on a basic brown ale, not special, but worth grabbing a single and giving it a test drive.

Poured into a Dogfish Head pint glass. Pours a russet coppery amber with a two finger cream colored head that dissipates slowly, leaving lots of lacing. Aroma dominated by sweet bready malt, light nuts and a faint boiled vegetable component; hint of brown sugar. Flavor is muted toasted and bready malt, lightly nutty with a somewhat astringent bitterness that may or may not have been hops. Finishes with mild bitterness, dark bread and brown bready malt. Medium bodied. Hmm, different, but subdued and not very interesting. Flavors are pleasant enough, but not balanced or interesting. No bacon is evident. I finished the glass without regret, but his is a one-and-done. An uncommon beer indeed.

473ml can. I am not an adherent of the 'bacon makes everything better' camp. Bacon is just fine all by itself.

This beer pours a crystal clear, dark brassy amber hue, with three pudgy fingers of teeming, foamy, and yet still densely caked beige head, which leaves some random droopy cloud lace around the glass as it slowly sinks away.

It smells of toasted grainy malt, and a rather biscuity one at that, a dry oily nuttiness, wet ash, a musty, vegetal character, some faint fruit salad sweetness, and flat earthy hops. The taste is lightly roasted caramel malt, somewhat pithy, weedy grain, semi-sweet generic nut butter, a certain sense of umami, that could be meaty, but I'm not wholly convinced, with a very subtle fruity, leafy hoppiness. The 6.8% alcohol is deftly integrated, not a trace is overtly perceptible.

The carbonation is pretty laid-back, a wee bit frothy, and duly supportive, the body a decent medium weight, with a late-arriving metallic edge taking its pound of flesh out of the overall smoothness. It finishes off-dry, the nutty caramel malt reasserting itself, as the vegetal and fruity notes diminish without fading, amongst a softly lingering ashy bitterness.

Judged solely on its glass-borne merits, this is an agreeable brown ale - toasted biscuits, caramel, nuts, and a fairly reserved hoppiness. However, in terms of the proclaimed guest ingredients (and especially the one that made into the name), if their mention weren't so splattered all over the label, I wouldn't have noticed them in the beer. Wait, I didn't - ok, maybe the buckwheat, but that was tenuous at best.